Torchwood: A Touch of Torchwood
by Maria Patenaude
Summary: Cardiff, Wales, is home to many strange things, not the least of which is a secret organization known as Torchwood. Some secrets run deeper than others. This is one of Jack's... one that fell between the cracks and was never told. Part 1 of 5.
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1 of this fanfic (specifically "A Touch of Torchwood") was written while Torchwood Season 2 was still airing in the UK, pre Doctor Who Season 4, and pre Children of Earth. It is a diligently-researched work of love that I never intended to make public; I began it for my own enjoyment, and continued it out of love, and as a means of coping with some of the grief left behind by TW Season 2. With that in mind, R&R, and I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Torchwood and Doctor Who are franchises that don't belong to me. I simply like to visit their 'verse and play. **

**Primarily, what's not mine belongs to Russell T. Davies et al. of the current incarnation of the Whoniverse.**

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My name is Miranda Small. I live in Cardiff, Wales. It's nice here, by the sea. Not that I can _see_ the sea, but the smells and sounds are interesting. I've been blind for as long as I can remember, but I don't know how it happened. My friend Jack says I wasn't born blind, but he's never told me how he knows. Typical Jack. He tells me what he wants to say, not necessarily what I want to know. But that's his way. I don't press him. He's the only true friend I have. It's worth the secrecy, to be near him. To be a part of his life. Or at least have him be a part of mine.

He's been coming here for as long as I've been here, my Jack. I have no memory of my life before age twenty, and no memory of life without Jack... but he's not really mine. He's his own man. Sometimes weeks go by and he doesn't come 'round. Sometimes months. Sometimes he comes to me smelling of other women, and sometimes of other men, but he always comes back. Eventually.

For the past eight years, I've known him. For the past eight years, I've loved him. I've often wondered, though, if he's the one that's blind.

* * *

Jack says I've known him for most of my life. I wish I could remember. He says I was eight when we first met, but I'm eight _now_, according to my memories. How can I claim my twenty-eight years on this earth if I don't remember them all?

I sing at a pub most nights. The Blue Danube. It's a bit small; not one of the more popular pubs; but I like it there. My flat is sterile, lonely. The pub is teeming with life. The staff changes often as people move on. Gareth, my boss, says most go off to London. He also says those who fail there are too ashamed to come back 'round. He's passed a few in the street, he says, mere months after they've left. I've known a few to come back in, though. The years may have changed their faces too much for _him_ to realize, but not their voices. I hear them, and I do what they want me to do. I pretend not to know them. Gareth is right about that much. They _are_ ashamed when they fail.

Cardiff is not so bad a place to come back to, though. If it was, Jack wouldn't stay. He's American, or at least he _sounds_ American, but he's been here long enough to have picked up a lot of British terms. He says bonnet and boot, not hood and trunk, when talking about cars. He orders chips, not fries. There's something else off about his voice, though... It's not just that he doesn't sound like the other Americans I've spoken to. It's how, even when he's happy, he always sounds so sad. I don't think it's me he's sad for, either. I'm not that self-centred. I know his world... his _universe_, doesn't revolve around me.

Speaking of voices and accents and wording... Out of all the people I've met, I speak with Jack the most. Or, better said, I listen to him the most. He's Americanized me, or so Gareth says. Sometimes Gareth has to ask me to re-word things for him, says my accent's a muddle. "That Harkness," he says. "Always changing ye. Every time he comes 'round you go odd on me. Why don't you just tell him how you feel and have on with it?"

He doesn't know, though, about the others. Jack isn't one for sharing much of himself, but he certainly does enough shagging for five men. Am I jealous? Not sure. Should I be? I love him too much to begrudge him his small pleasures. Besides, in the past year or so it's been just the one. He smells nice. Like coffee and soap. His name is Ianto. Jack doesn't know that I know about him, but the thing is that I've met him. Ianto Jones. Clean skin and coffee, and if I hadn't recognized his smell from Jack, I'd have recognized the bit of Jack on him anyway. On his collar, like Jack had rested his head there, or hugged him. That means he's special to Jack, as Jack may be a sexual person, but he is nearly never intimate. He loves, though. Oh, how he loves!

The night I met Ianto was a quiet one. He came late, near closing, and ordered water, sitting beside me at the bar. "Hello," he said to me, then pretended I wasn't the person he was there to talk to. A quiet man. Shy. But as I reached for his hand, he met me halfway. "Ianto Jones," he introduced himself. He had a warm voice. Slightly gruff, but pleasant.

"Miranda Small," I said in turn, then lowered my voice. "Does Jack know you're here?"

He was dumbstruck for a moment, then admitted, "No, he doesn't. Has he...?"

"Mentioned you? No, he hasn't. But he comes here smelling of you sometimes," I explained. "Coffee and soap," I whispered, nearing my lips to the cup of his ear, "and right now you smell of him, too. Just a bit. He just left, didn't he? Or you did. Either way, he kissed you goodnight."

"I should have known you'd be interesting," Ianto chuckled.

"And how did you find me, Ianto Jones?"

"GPS tracking," he said, and I must have looked suspicious, because he over-explained his motives for coming to see me, and he's not the sort to blather. "I wasn't spying on him," he told me, "but Jack's a man of very few habits, and even fewer vices. I noticed he came here often, especially after a hard day, and I was wondering what was here. When I saw it was a pub, I wondered _who_. Jack—"

"Nearly never drinks," I concluded. "Well, here I am. No big mystery."

"But you are," he admitted. "He comes to _me_ when he's happy. He comes to _you_ when things go wrong."

"And never the twain shall meet," I quipped. "Ianto... Jack is... complicated. You're Torchwood, from your wording. You have a lot on your plate. Jack is your boss and you worry. He keeps things from you. Also, you love him, am I right?"

"More than he knows," Ianto said softly. I still had his hand, squeezed it gently.

"He loves you, too. That's why he comes to me with the bad. He's protecting you," I explained.

"I don't want him to," he murmured, sounding hurt rather than reassured.

"It's his way," I said simply.

"How long have you known him?"

"Long enough," I replied. "Go back to him, Ianto. Tell him you met Miranda Small and she says hello. Tell him I said—"

"He'll know I've been tracking him again," he blurted.

"The Lost Ones? Flat Holm Island?" I murmured, felt his grip on my hand tighten. "You didn't _go_ there, did you? He said one of his workmates had figured it out and gone over."

"That was Gwen," he murmured. "I figured it out first, but she was the one who went. I figured he was protecting us from something, so—"

"But you never thought he might be protecting you from _me_," I supplied, suddenly finding my hand empty of his. "Ianto, wait," I said, grasping his arm as he moved to stand. "He could just as easily be protecting me from you lot."

"Us?"

"Yes. _Torchwood_. I don't remember myself, you see. Everything before age twenty is a blank. Was I Retconned out of twenty years of my life? If I was, there must be a reason, but it can't have been for what I know about _you_. The things Jack's told me! But he never tells me about _me_. Do you see?"

"What do you want from me, Miss Small?"

"Miranda, please, Ianto. I just want to know, have you looked me up? In the records, I mean. Is there a single mention of me?"

"Not that I know of," he told me. "I checked twice. Would you like me to check a third time? Maybe there's something I missed. Have you considered Miranda Small may not be your real name?" he ventured.

"I have. Why?"

"You don't appear in public records until the year 2000," he admitted. "Before that, it's like you didn't exist. No record of your birth, no family... Maybe there's something I missed," he said again.

"Thank you, Ianto," I said to him, smiling.

"What for, miss? Miranda," he amended. "I've just told you that you don't exist."

"That's more than Jack will say," I told him, kissing him on the cheek. "So thank you. And thank you for loving him. If he didn't have you... Anyway, thanks."

"I believe I could say the same, Miranda," he whispered, "so thank you, too."

And with that said, he left. An odd man, Ianto Jones. But a sweet one.


	2. Chapter 2

I met another of Jack's co-workers once, about three years ago. I didn't know he was with Torchwood at first. He was forward, a flirt, didn't seem to mind at all that I'm blind. He was funny. Sarcastic-funny with a London accent, a slender build, and soft hands. Normally I don't pay any heed to the men that flirt with me; I've been told I'm pretty, but I only know it's true because Jack says so, too. It's not like I can look in the mirror, and I don't remember my own face. Owen Harper never said I was pretty. He just put an arm around my waist and whispered in my ear that he wanted to dance with me.

"I can't dance," I told him with a chuckle.

"'Course you can. You're as graceful as a swan gliding across a lake," he murmured.

"I've never seen a swan," I said.

"Actually," he amended, "you'd put the swans to shame. Dance with me." Not easily dissuaded, this one. "What's your name, love?"

"Miranda," I told him. "Miranda Small."

"Owen Harper," he responded in turn, clasping my hand.

"You've got the hands of a surgeon," I remarked.

"Good guess," he told me.

"You're havin' me on," I said, pulling away.

"Not a bit," he insisted, drawing me against himself. He smelled wonderful. Metrosexual. And he certainly knew exactly where and how to touch a woman to turn her on. "God, you smell good," he said breathlessly, startling me, as I'd been thinking the same about him. "Are you off for the night?"

"Are you asking me to your place?" I ventured.

"I'd be lyin' if I said it hadn't crossed my mind."

"Then yes, I'm off for the night," I replied.

"Let me savour this for a bit," he murmured, his breath tickling my ear, my heart racing.

"What?"

"Dancing with you," he told me simply.

I'd been 90% certain I wanted him up until then, even though I knew at least half of what he said was calculated. At that moment, though, I knew for sure. We'd been dancing nearly half an hour before he first kissed me. Five minutes after that, I was in his car.

He had very soft sheets. I knew from the first that he did things like that all the time; picking up women he didn't really know. Somehow he knew I was new to it, though. Actually, until that night, I wasn't even sure whether or not I was a virgin.

I'd been awake for about five years then, and I hadn't really lived. Part of me had been waiting for Jack. Most of me was just afraid. Normal girls get butchered, murdered... What about a blind girl with no family? I didn't exactly expect Jack to come running to my rescue if I ever got in a bind, though the Torchwood Emergency Line and his cell phone were speed-dial one and two on my mobile. I'd never called him. I never intended to.

Owen Harper was the first lover of my conscious life. He was tender and dangerous. Considerate and all-consuming. He was mind-blowing. He was bliss.

He never came 'round the pub again. I think we're a bit below his usual standards. Gareth always says we don't get nearly enough pretty girls here. Doctor Harper struck me as the sort who took casual sex to the extreme definition: never repeat a one-night stand.

I did figure out who he was, though, the next time Jack came to see me. His hands smelled of Owen, just a hint of moisturizer, almost cancelled out by Jack's own scent. They'd shook hands, or Jack had touched his cheek in one of his odd moments of tenderness. He's not a hard man, in spite of what most people think, my Jack. I almost asked him if he knew a Doctor Harper, then decided to keep it to myself. He eventually let the name Owen slip, and that confirmed it for me.

Torchwood. Bloody Torchwood. Had _they_ done this to me? Stolen my life? Was Jack somehow trying to make up for it? He told me once he's missing two years of his own life. An organization called the Time Agency had something to do with it. He's terrified of what he might have done in those two years. Terrified of the blank, but much more of discovering he did something terrible. I know how he feels.

* * *

"I found something, Miranda," Ianto told me. It had been only a few days since we'd first met. "It wasn't in the database," he told me. "I found it in the archives. The paper ones. I'd been looking for any reference to Rift activity around the time your name first showed in public records, with about a year of leeway, that sounded even vaguely like it might have to do with you. Alex Hopkins was head of Torchwood back then, up until... Well, anyway, in late December of 1999 he made mention of a locket; silver with filigrees; that he'd seen on Jack's desk. Said he thought it was a belated Christmas gift for a girlfriend of Jack's or something until he touched it and it glowed. He mentions having photographed it and put it in the unclassified objects bin, but we sort that bin frequently, and there was no such locket. No photo in the database either. I decided to check the files for the photo, just in case, but I didn't really expect to find it. Alex Hopkins died at midnight of January 1st, 2000."

"A locket?" I echoed. "Ianto, what does a random glowing locket have to do with me?"

"Miranda," he told me, "you're wearing it! Silver with filigrees. You were wearing it the night we met, and it matches the photo I found in the files."

"Ianto," I told him patiently, "I don't wear jewellery."

He took my hand gently in his own and placed it on my chest, over my heart. My fingers met metal, oddly cold even though it was nestled in my bosom.

_Miranda, could you take off your necklace?_ Owen had asked me. _It's freezin' a hole in my chest!_

How on earth had I gotten this locket? How long had I had it? Why didn't I know?

"Jack?" I inquired over Ianto's shoulder. I knew his stride. I knew his scent. Ianto jumped and almost fell off his barstool, grabbing me about the waist so as not to fall, his other hand still holding mine to my bosom. It must have looked quite compromising from Jack's angle. Either that or amusing, but he didn't laugh. "How long have I had this locket?" I asked him.

"All your life," he told me. "I never wanted you to use it, but the way Torchwood was back then... And it was only a matter of time before they found out about you."

"Use it?" I echoed. "Jack, what do you mean?"

"Ianto, come here," he said gravely.

"Jack, I'm sorry. I never—"

"Come over to the doorway, Ianto," he amended, his tone softening. "I'm not exactly sure what this is going to do." Ianto disentangled himself from my arms and stood, going to Jack, who kissed him tenderly. I heard it, and yes, I felt a spark of jealousy. Knowing he was with others was one thing; being present while he kissed them was quite another. "Stay here," Jack told him. "Just watch." Then he came to me. "Miranda," he said, "I hope this is the right time for you to do this. It's been an odd eight years. You were kept safe last year because of what you did in '99, but I was careless with what you'd entrusted to me and it had consequences. Blame me, Miranda, not yourself."

"What for?" I asked him.

"Open the locket," he told me softly.

"Why? It's not like I'll be able to see—"

"You will," he promised me. "We've come a long way. We can help you now."

"Torchwood?"

"Yes. All these years... I've missed you. Open the locket. For me."

So I did. And that's when I got my life back. Not twenty lost years as I had thought, but more than a hundred! A surge of energy emanated from the locket, engulfed me, brought me back to myself.

"Well, that was wild, Jack," I said. "Oh. Different accent. That's weird. I'd gone native!" I remarked, putting a hand to my lips, making sure they were still mine.

"You're American?" Ianto inquired from the doorway. "Or are you from wherever Jack is from that he refuses to say?"

"Neither. Jack is human as they come, Ianto. Just... extended. And from the Colonies. Sort of. I'm from Gallifrey. Long ago and far away. Is the team in, Jack? I don't want to have to explain myself over and over and over and—"

"They're in, Sage, and there's only five of us nowadays. No more quasi-affiliated field operatives."

"When's my father due? You saw him without me, you naughty man. You promised!" I reprimanded.

"Remember what I told you about Harold Saxon killing the President of the United States?" he ventured.

"Yeah, of course. You sounded like you'd spent a year in hell."

"I had. Saxon was the Master."

"That insane son of a whore? Did he hurt my father? Jack, why didn't you bring me back then? I could have helped!"

"You would have died. Everyone did. Your father's fine, though. Paradox machine. Long story."

"What's he like now? Has he regenerated? How does he look? He's always wanted to be ginger," I pressed. "Is he ginger?"

"He barely looks a day older than you, runs around in sneakers and a pinstripe suit, has brown hair, and he's rather cheeky. Fun, though. Scary, but fun."

"That's my dad," I chuckled. "So, my dear Captain Jack, you said I'll see. Did you mean that literally? I'd hate to have to regenerate now after spending eight years as a blind human."

"You're not human?" Gareth said behind me. Oops.

"Jack, why don't we all have a drink before we go?" I suggested. "Gareth, you also. On me."

That was the night we Retconned my boss. When I eventually went back to see him, I told him I'd had cornea replacement surgery, courtesy of a friend of Jack's, and that I quit. But don't walk away yet. I haven't told you about meeting the team.


	3. Chapter 3

Team Torchwood, since 2006, consisted of my dear Jack Harkness (former Time Agent from the 51st Century, stuck on Earth, and kind of immortal), Toshiko Sato (a Japanese computer genius), Doctor Owen Harper (my once upon a one-night-stand and all-around medical man), Ianto Jones (of the amazing coffee skills and, as I would soon discover, of the gorgeous suits), and last but not least, the lovely Gwen Cooper (formerly of the Cardiff Police Department, and the only member of Torchwood who was married).

Jack introduced me as Sage, which is accurate. It's the name I took in Gallifrey upon my Initiation at age eight. Miranda Small was the human being I became to keep me off of Torchwood '99's radar when I was blinded by this weirdo in a red coat from the Napoleonic Wars. The equipment they had in '99 would have registered a regeneration, but an emergency genetic manipulation was well below their sensors back then.

I had asked Jack to take the locket that retained my Gallifreyan consciousness and keep it safe for me, along with a few other things. He mislaid the locket, though, and poor Alex Hopkins had looked into it. He saw the trials ahead for the human race and couldn't handle the burden, killing off his team out of what he called mercy, and handing Torchwood Three over to Jack, who had been their go-to guy for over a century by then, right before blowing his brains out... and onto poor Jack. I do feel rather guilty over that incident. I should have trusted the chameleon properties of the locket. My dad has a pocket watch that can do the same thing. Female Time Lords would look a bit strange with a fob watch on us, though, wouldn't we. Hence the locket. But I digress.

Jack introduced me to Torchwood as it is today, defending the Earth from alien threats, protecting aliens that aren't a threat (such as yours truly; hello!), and guarding the Cardiff Rift. Nasty bugger, that Rift. Once upon a long lost time ago, a servant girl named Gwyneth sealed the Rift up pretty well, but as Jack says "Stuff slips through all the time. Flotsam and jetsam." Gwen is the very picture of Gwyneth, who I saw through the Time Vortex, but I haven't got the heart to tell her she's her reincarnation. She's such a sweet girl; it'd break her heart.

I wonder what exactly made Alex run mad and kill off his team. I saw so much... Maybe it was Abaddon the Great Devourer. Or perhaps he saw the Battle of Canary Wharf, where Torchwood One fell, and thought we'd lose that war. My dad saved us, of course. He and Rose Tyler. Jack says Rose is the most amazing human being he's ever met. Martha Jones, he tells me, is a close second, having helped my father defeat the Master. He says he's never nailed either of them, and only kissed each of them once. I feel somewhat better about his chastity with me when I was a human now, but still... How irritating! He knows how much I love him.

"I'm from Gallifrey," I told the team. "My father is the Doctor. Have any of you met him? Jack's 'right kind of Doctor'?"

"I did, once," Toshiko admitted. "When that spacecraft crashed into Big Ben. I had infiltrated UNIT; Jack's orders. I didn't know who the Doctor was back then, of course. Don't know much more now. Jack doesn't say."

"Jack never says," Owen spoke up. Up until then I hadn't been able to locate him in the room. "Hello again. I thought your name was Miranda," he said, sounding rather reproachful.

"Owen?" I inquired. "I'm rather surprised you remember. My name _was_ Miranda then... Owen, can I ask you something strange?"

"Like everything's been said so far's _completely_ normal," he remarked. "What is it?"

"Are you dead?" I asked him warily.

"Yeah. A bit. Undead, really. Problem?" he tossed back.

"I'm so sorry, Owen. It must be very strange," I said.

"No stranger'n Jack standing back up after being shot in the head. Except all _his_ parts work," he grumbled.

"You were amazing," I told him frankly, trying to ignore the feeling of Jack's glare.

"And you're gorgeous, whatever your name is. Glad I got to shag you while I still could," Owen remarked. Toshiko made a small noise of disapproval, Gwen snickered, Ianto coughed, and Jack just kept boring a hole in the side of my face with his eyes. I blushed; I _am_ a lady after all; and he finally relented.

"So," Jack began. "Sage was blinded about nine years ago. Some sort of radiation; concentrated burst."

"You mean like a ray gun?" Tosh interjected.

"Something like that," I conceded.

"Anyway... Owen, I need you to see what you can do with that laser-based scalpel we scavenged. Ianto, help him; it's a two-handed job. Sage, willing to take the risk?"

"Sure," I agreed immediately. "I mean, if they burst an eyeball, I can always regenerate. I'm still on Gen One, after all."

"Gen One?" Gwen inquired.

"Oh! Gallifreyans can regenerate if we're about to die or are severely wounded. They say there's a finite number of times we can do it, but it's never really been proven. No one's ever passed twelve and survived, but that doesn't mean it's impossible."

"Regenerate?" she echoed, bemused.

"Yep. Become a whole new person. Memories intact, physically different, and sometimes our personality can change a bit. My dad was a bit aged and hanging around with my niece when he first left Gallifrey, middle-aged and very serious last I saw him, but Jack says he's quite young now."

"And cheeky," Jack added.

"That, too. The body he had prior to the current one was rather big-eared, right, Jack?"

"Nose was pretty big, too. Come to think of it, he also had big feet. I wonder if he had a big—"

"Anyway, my dad is over nine hundred years old now, and on Gen Ten. I'm only one-hundred-sixteen. I'd still look twenty if I hadn't been human for eight years."

"You still do," Jack told me, and some of the old tenderness had returned to his voice.

"Anyway, I used a Time Agent's Vortex Manipulator, gift from a friend of mine, to escape the fall of Gallifrey when I was eight. Landed in 1900, Jack found me and figured out who I am, and he's been protecting me ever since. Supposed to be the other way around, but he _is_ my elder, so I don't argue the point."

"She tries," Jack teased.

"A Vortex what?" Gwen inquired.

"She means the watch, doesn't she, Jack?" Ianto interjected. "She has a wrist strap like yours."

"How do you know that?" Jack asked him.

"Personal effects carton from 1999, marked Sage. But there never was a Sage who worked for Torchwood," he explained. "No one knows more about this place than I do," he said with a degree of pride.

"Nice one, Ianto, but she kind of _did_ work for Torchwood. Off the record, and as little dirty work as possible, but when you've got weird from all over time and space turning up on your doorstep, sometimes you need a Time Lord," Jack clarified. "Well, enough chatter. Let's give this girl her eyes back. And try not to botch it, all right, boys? I'm rather fond of this particular Generation."

"Yeah, Gen Two could be knock-kneed and horse-faced," Owen remarked, bending to help me up.

"Ever the charmer, Doctor Harper," I teased back, laying a hand against his cool cheek.

"Owen," Ianto interrupted him quietly. "Let me."

"Sorry, Miranda. My chivalry's been suspended on account of my being made of glass," Owen murmured begrudgingly before stepping aside.

Ianto helped me stand, then guided me around to Owen's small surgical cubicle. "Watch your footing," he told me along the way. "Bit of a maze down here."

"It sounds huge," I remarked. "Where exactly are we?"

"Underground. Inside a sculpture," Ianto said. "Sort of hiding in plain sight."

"Is it a phallic sculpture, Jack?" I called out, missing my footing and nearly slipping off the walkway for my trouble.

"Whoa!" Ianto saved me from falling by what felt like a wish and a prayer; not having time to use his other arm, he gave me a good hard yank. "Sorry. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, sorry. My fault," I apologized in turn, rubbing my shoulder.

"It _is_ phallic, though," he told me with a barely-restrained chuckle.

"Come along, you two," Owen chided. "Quit pissin' about."

Just then I heard an odd screech over my head. "Whoa! Pterodactyl?"

"Good ear," Ianto complimented me. "Her name is Myfanawy."

"Is that Welsh?"

"It means 'my fine, rare one'. Same could be said of you, I should think," he ventured.

"Last of my kind, save my father," I told him as he helped me onto the operating table. "Of course, he thinks _he's_ the last. Doesn't he, Jack," I said to the man behind me. "If you'd told him, he would have come. Why didn't you tell him?"

"Bad timing," he said plainly. "End of the world."

"I've heard that one before," I muttered.

"Only 'cause we've been there before," Jack reminded me, kissing me gently on the temple. "Come back to me, Sage," he whispered. "All the way back. I've missed you." He pressed me gently onto the table, then backed away. "Gentlemen."

"Jack, when you say 'laser-based scalpel', you don't mean the one you called the Singularity Scalpel? The one you said nearly blasted a hole through one of your teammates when your surgeon; Owen, I presume; tried to vaporize paper inside a cup?"

"That would be me nearly got blasted," Ianto spoke up. "Thanks for the memories. And yes, I'm afraid that's the one."

"But I've worked it out since," Owen interjected defensively. "Remember Martha and the Mayfly? Gwen and the Nostrovite?"

"Jack?"

"He's right; he's got it working now. I wouldn't put you under the beam of a _blaster_, Sage. Who do you think I am?"

"My Captain," I whispered, reaching out my hand. Jack took it and held it while his friends fixed my eyes. Fixed me. Brought me all the way back. They had to vaporize a layer of scar tissue less than a millimetre thick on each eye to do it, and they did. I couldn't have asked for a better first sight than Jack, though I could have lived without his look of concern. I love that he worries about me, but I do hate worrying him, if that makes any sense.

"Sage, are you all right?" he asked, hovering over me.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Jack Harkness," I murmured, then fainted in his arms.

Quite embarrassing, really.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey there," Jack murmured when I came to.

"That was embarrassing," I said.

"It seems to be a side-effect of the Scalpel," Ianto told me, handing me a glass of water. "We don't fully understand it yet."

"And here I was thinking she was overwhelmed by the sight of me," Jack said with a wink, steadying my trembling hands with one of his own so I could drink. I was in his lap, on a sofa; Ianto was crouched somewhere in the vicinity of Jack's knees.

"It's good to finally see your face, Ianto," I remarked. "By the way, love the suit." Ianto chuckled and blushed, bowing his head. "Where's Owen?"

"Right here," he said, making his way fleetly over to us. "Am I insane, or do you have two hearts?"

"What, you haven't scanned me yet?" I teased.

"Thought it might be an invasion of privacy. Or that Jack might take out my knees if I tried."

"It's all right, Owen. I'll let you do all the tests you want. Species: Time Lord. Planet of Origin: Gallifrey. And yes, I have two hearts."

"Your father would never forgive me if I put your species in the database, Sage," Jack told me softly.

"I didn't say put me in the database; I said Owen could run his scans. Satisfy his curiosity. And yours. Don't tell me you don't want to know, Jack. You've _always_ wanted to know."

"Ianto, her effects." Ianto handed him a rather small box, which he riffled through distractedly. "Psychic Paper, Sonic Penlight," Jack, murmured. "Don't know why you keep it; doesn't work. TARDIS key," he flashed a slender silver case at me, "with a deadlock seal on it; useless."

"Undetectable," I clarified.

"Ah. Here it is. Wrist strap." He held up my old leather wristband, about two thirds the size of his own, and strapped it to my left arm.

"Smaller than yours," Ianto remarked to Jack.

"That's because it belonged to a boy, Ianto, nothing else. It can do anything Jack's can do. Well, mostly," I amended. "Can't record holograms anymore. Pity. But I mostly miss time travel. Teleporting was fun, too, but that shorted out not too long after I got here."

"Is she serious, Jack?" Gwen inquired

"_She's_ called Sage," I piped up, "and yes, quite, thanks. Jack's watch didn't handle his trip here any better than mine did, and you're not allowed to cross your own timeline anyway, so no bright ideas about fixing past mistakes, Gwen Cooper. Or you, Toshiko Sato. Owen is what he is and we can't change that, so just be glad for _who_ he is, all right?"

"How did— Did you just read my mind?" Tosh asked reproachfully.

"You were thinking very loudly, Tosh, sorry," I apologized gently. I hadn't meant to hear her thoughts. They were just so _strong_. "I truly am. I'm only mildly psychic. I rarely hear anything without focusing, and never what's buried. Just the on-the-top stuff, and only when people are thinking very hard about something... Yes, Ianto, I like your tie very much. Its boldness is part of its charm." He blushed again.

"What about me? Didn't you hear me?" Owen inquired.

"Far away, like you were talking in the next room. Something along the lines of 'crackin' arse'?" He chuckled, shaking his head in amazement.

"What about Jack's mind? Can you read Jack?" Toshiko asked.

"Tosh," he reprimanded.

"No, sorry," I fibbed. "Never could."

"Think you can stand, Sage?" Jack whispered to me.

"I'm not really sure, Jack," I admitted softly.

"Sit up, then? For me," he said. I did my best, but I was embarrassingly weak. "Ianto... Take my place," he murmured. The other man complied without question or hesitation. I smiled up at Ianto, my head against his chest, then closed my eyes and simply relished being near him. I was understanding more by the moment why Jack loved him. He was like the eye of a storm. He was strong and steadfast, soft-spoken and loyal. I was beginning to fall in love with him myself... not that I realized it then. "Okay, team. Everybody home. Especially you, Gwen; Rhys will be missing you. Ianto and I have things well in hand. Owen," he added as everyone gathered their effects in bewilderment, "that was fantastic work. Thanks for not blasting her brains out."

"Jack," Ianto reprimanded. My eyes had flashed open and I was staring at Jack hard enough to bore holes in the back of his skull.

"Sorry; it's just that you couldn't get me under that thing if you paid me," he admitted.

"You've been shot in the head before," I reminded him. "I haven't. Not sure I could regenerate with a bloody hole in my brain, thanks."

"Really, Jack," Gwen also chided him. "That's not funny." She sounded like she was about to laugh as she said it, though, so apparently to her it was.

"Up until now _I_ thought it was actually a weapon, Gwen," Tosh admitted. "I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end either."

"Well, no. It hurts like mad," Gwen admitted, her tone sobering. "But Owen does know what he's doing with it now. He showed Rhys right quick. And Ianto _is_ good with his hands, isn't he Jack," she concluded.

"You have no idea," Jack said slyly. Captain of the Innuendo Squad indeed. He pointed a stern finger at Gwen and repeated. "Home. That's an order."

"Going, going," Gwen muttered. Tosh fell in behind her, Owen at the rear.

"Really great to see you again, Miranda," Owen called over to me.

"Really great to see _you_, Doctor Harper," I replied. He smiled brightly as he left. "I guess he'll always call me Miranda," I mused aloud.

"You and _Owen_?" Jack blurted accusingly, turning to face me.

"What? It was _three years_ ago," I shot back. "Besides, no one else would have me," I told him.

"God, I hate when women say that," he growled, clenching his fists.

"Jack," Ianto spoke up, his voice softening again. "It worries me to see you like this."

"So go home, too, Ianto. And take her with you," he retorted, pacing in frustration.

"Jack, she's not well and I know next to nothing about her physiology. I can't leave her on her own, and I'd be useless if I stayed with her," Ianto pointed out calmly.

"Sage," Jack blurted, still pacing. "How could you ever think I'd stopped loving you?" By the sound of his voice, he was close to tears.

I tried to go to him, but strong hands held me down. "Let go of me, Ianto... Jack, look at me." Neither of them did as asked. "Jack, please... I botched the genetics. I couldn't remember _anything_, not even false memory like I was supposed to. Of course I had no idea how you felt about me. You'd come to me with these stories about death and destruction... You never once said anything that would have led me to believe you loved me."

"I always came back," he sighed.

"Yes, you did," I conceded. "Are you angry that I slept with someone, just one someone, _once_ in those eight years? If I tried to count the times you came to me smelling of—"

"Why Owen?" he asked me. "Why is it always Owen?"

"Always?" I echoed.

"Gwen," Ianto murmured in my ear.

"Whoa," I blurted. "Forget triangles, Jack. Let's try a Tetradecagon! In all the time I've known you... Myriagon! So what if I slept with Owen? Why do you even care? You haven't touched me since last millennium, and even then I was always sharing you with _someone_. Have you stopped to think what you're doing to Ianto right now, being jealous over my long ago one night stand with your now deceased colleague?"

"It's not like that, me and Jack," Ianto said softly. "Is it. He cheats. He always cheats. But everyone else has to play the game, right, Jack?"

"He _does_ love you, though, Ianto. It's the loudest thought in his head," I told him.

"You said you couldn't—"

"She lied," Jack stated the obvious. "Sometimes she can, if my guard's down."

"You love me?" Ianto asked him, disbelievingly.

"More than words can say," he admitted, opening his hands in surrender.

Ianto smiled, even cried a little. Jack cried a little, too.

"Captain," I said when the moment had passed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying you—"

"Love you both? Yes. I do," he interjected. "Sage... I've loved you since I met you. You were my sister, my daughter... For a long time you were my only friend. You made me quit drinking and getting killed in bar fights every other night. You kept me from running off half-cocked to find your father and destroying the world in the process. You gave me a reason to live. Every time I had to leave, what brought me back wasn't Torchwood... It was you."

"Do you remember what you told me New Year's Day of 1980?" I asked him softly.

"Do you mean before or after we..."

"Before." I smiled. Ianto raised an eyebrow.

"I told you I would love you until the end of time," he said. "And you said 'Time never ends, Jack. We do.'"

"What did you say to that?" I prompted.

"'Until the end of time'," he repeated, as he had 28 years earlier. "It's still true."

"You'll never love me like I love you," I whispered.

"You're the fire of a thousand suns, Sage," he murmured, dropping to his knees. "Who ever could?"

He rested his head on my abdomen, near tears once again. "Ianto," I said softly as I distractedly attempted to smooth Jack's unruly hair, "is this all right? I don't want to come between you."

"I honestly don't know," he admitted. "I like you, though. I suppose if I have to share him with someone, it's a good thing it's someone I like," he mused.

Jack chuckled, raising his head. "You sound like parents discussing joint custody of their child," he teased. "I love you both. Today's no different from yesterday, except that Sage remembers me. Nothing's going to change between us, Ianto."

"Everything changes, Jack. It's a law of nature," I reminded him. "Even you. Finally catching up with my father did you some good, I think. You used to only pretend to be happy. I think now sometimes you actually are."

"That's part of it," he conceded, "but I think you have Ianto to thank for the rest."

"Oh, I already have," I reassured him. "So... Do I have to keep living in that awful flat? It's noisy there, and there's mice."

"Not exactly a lot of room here, Sage," he reminded me.

"I'll sleep in a cell if I have to, Jack. Right next to a Weevil, if need be. I hate mice." Ianto was forcibly holding back laughter. "You can laugh at me, Ianto, really. It's fine. I actually do prefer Weevils over mice. A Weevil's tall and generally noisy. Mice get all up in your bed when you're sleeping," I told him with a shudder.

"Do me a favour, Ianto, and go help this girl fetch her things," Jack said, shaking his head and chuckling. "Can't have her sleeping with mice. There's always this couch right here, if I can't find her a better place."

"There's the one at the back of the Tourist Information Centre, too," he pointed out. "If you feel too lonely in here, or if Myfanawy bothers you, that is."

"Why would she bother me?"

"Crapped on Owen's head once," he remarked. I burst out laughing.

"Oh, yeah!" Jack exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Sage is ready to face the world! Come on. Up with you before you put Ianto's legs to sleep and I end up having to drive you."

"She's actually very light, Jack," Ianto stated. "I'm perfectly comfortable."

"We once had to sleep in a morgue locker together; long story. Point is, after an hour or so she stops feeling so light."

"Quit it, Harkness. You let me get scrawny as a human. Come to think of it, I'm starving," I remarked.

"Ianto. Pack her stuff, bring her back, and for God's sake feed her," Jack ordered.

"Is De Rossi's still open?" I asked. "They did an amazing four-cheese."

"Sorry, no. We've got Jubilee Pizza now," Ianto told me. "But Owen says there's a De Rossi's Viennese with extra chillies preserved in Bay 50 of the cryo chamber, if you're interested."

"Jubilee's will be fine, thanks," I grimaced. "Not _that_ desperate... Is he really using Bay 50 for a pizza? Last thing I remember being stored in Bay 50 was this lobster thing. Probably a stunted Macra. Nasty buggers. My father said—"

"Flat, food, sofa," Jack interrupted me. "You can talk Ianto's ear off on the way."

"All right, all right. Honestly, I thought I was too quiet as a human. Do I blather, Ianto?" I inquired.

"Just a bit," he said diplomatically.

"Is it irritating?"

"No, it's quite interesting," he told me. "But I suppose not to Jack; he's probably heard it all before. Come on; let's get you up and out of his way so you can tell me all about Macra." Jack helped me up, then waved us out, Ianto taking my arm. Once we were outside, though, we didn't get back to the Macra. Not then. "I need to ask you, since Jack won't say... You might know, because it's one of the bad things, and because you've known him longer. Do you know—"

"Who Gray is?" I guessed. He sighed, head bowed. "No, Ianto, he won't say. Still has nightmares about him, though, doesn't he."

"More and more in the past few months," he told me, opening his car door for me. "Ever since that mess with John Hart—"

"John was here? Ooh, that's bad. John is what Jack used to be like, you know. Before he met my father. I suppose any reminder of his past would have brought about the Gray thing again."

"John says he found Gray."

"Liar. He's such a liar," I said, climbing in.

If only I'd known how wrong I was. But I didn't. Not then.


	5. Chapter 5

"Good morning, Sunshine," Owen teased me, having woken me up when he switched on a light.

"It's morning?" I mumbled.

"Yeah. No windows. Get's a bit confusing. Sometimes Tosh loses track of time in here and goes whole nights at her computer if Jack's not here to snap her out of it. Complete geek, that one."

"But a sweet geek," Jack interjected. "Morning, campers. Does my nose deceive me, or do I smell coffee? Ianto's in early. For that matter, Owen, so are you. Any particular reason?"

"Just curious about the newbie. She said I could scan her, remember?"

"Sure, Owen," I said, sitting up. "Just let me brush my teeth and change out of my jim-jams, will you?" I wrapped myself in my blanket as I stood. "Ooh! Cold floor! Jack, was my toothbrush in that little box of mine by any chance?"

"Yes. Two steps to your left, on the floor. Are you sure you should let Owen scan you?"

"Jack. Every word I've said in here has been recorded on your CCTV anyway. Hello!" I waved at the ceiling. "He might as well. Here I am! Time Lord! Well, sort of. Gallifreyan Time Lord Initiate. Blasted war," I grumbled.

"What war?" Ianto and Owen asked simultaneously, one putting on his lab coat and the other carrying a tray of coffees.

"The Time War," I said, then fished around in the box for my toothbrush. "Ah! Here it is. Thanks, Jack." I popped it in my mouth and made a quick and thorough job of it. "Venusian spearmint," I explained to the boys, who were staring. "Man, I miss my dad! So. Time War. Long ago and far, far away. Never really ended until Rose Tyler came along, though, did it, Jack. She wished you back to life a bit too hard. But I'm grateful, even when you're not. Landing in 1900 all by myself with only five months of training and a broken Sonic Penlight... Oh! Toshiko! Good morning. Do you know anything about sonic devices?"

She gave a little start, then said, flustered, "Just a bit. Why?"

"Do you think you could fix this?" I tossed her my penlight, and luckily she made a clean catch.

"Yes, I think so," she told me after a momentary glance at it through her glasses.

"Thanks. My father always favoured a screwdriver. Weirdo, my dad. Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks 'This ought to be sonic!'? But he was bored, and I needed bookshelves..." Jack burst out laughing at that. "What?"

"He did mention the shelves (1) when I asked him the same thing. I had a Sonic Blaster. He kept swapping it out with a banana on me."

"Don't mention bananas around me, thanks," Toshiko said blandly, bent over my sonic penlight, soldering something.

"She's allergic," Jack whispered. "Plus, there's that annoying friend of Rhys's. Banana Boat, they call him."

"Gooseberry," Tosh muttered.

"Rhys knows about all of you?"

"Oddly enough, yes. By now he knows about you, too, I imagine. He's a good sort," Owen remarked.

"He said to tell the alien new girl 'Hello'," Gwen said, walking in just then. "Oh, Ianto, you should patent this," she added blissfully upon taking her first sip of coffee.

"Well, say 'hello' back to Rhys, then," I said to Gwen, rubbing a sleep crust from my eye. "No coffee for me, Ianto?" I pouted.

"I didn't know how you take it. Was just coming to ask, actually," he explained.

"Cappuccino with chocolate sprinkles, or is that too much to ask?" I inquired.

"Martha's long lost twin," Owen jested.

"It'll be my pleasure, Sage," Ianto told me, even making a little butler-like bow.

"From the sounds in this room, I'd say the pleasure will be mine. Sounds like you're all having... coffeegasms."

"Scans first, then coffee," Owen called out to me from his cubicle.

"What about clothes? Do I get clothes first?"

"What for? If Arthur Dent could save the world in pyjamas, you can certainly get bio-scanned in yours," he quipped.

"Hello, cameras! Alien girl running around the Hub in her jammies!" I joked, dropping the blanket and scooting over to where Owen was, in an area which I later discovered was more often used for autopsies and dissections than surgery.

"Hey!" Jack called out after me. "Quit announcing it!"

"Like anyone's really going to check your CCTV logs and pay any attention to the brunette in the blue sleepwear," I waved him off.

"You've lost weight since I last saw you," Owen remarked. "Any particular reason?"

"Crappy wages," I shrugged. "Ianto says Jubilee's Pizza will sort me out."

"Jack, couldn't you have fed the poor girl?"

"I did," he told Owen, then left to see what Ianto was doing.

"He sent me groceries every week for eight years, Owen," I said softly.

"So why did you lose weight?"

"Rodents."

"That's disgusting."

"Yep."

"If I still had a gag reflex..."

"Don't go there. Scan me, Doctor Harper. Before Jack talks you out of it."

And so he did. "Blimey. Two hearts. Seriously. Tosh! Have a look! Binary vascular system!"

"Wow. Are you sure we can't log you in the database, Sage? That's—"

"No logging!" Jack called out. "Queen Victoria created the Torchwood Institute to persecute her father. Let's not give our successors any blueprints on how to take him out. In fact, as soon as you've satisfied your curiosity, Owen, I'm going to delete this footage from the CCTV."

"Curiosity satisfied, Jack. Everything beyond the binary vascular system is way out of my league," Owen conceded.

"Sage. Clothes. Now." Jack pointed to the bathroom.

"She's not a child, Jack," I overheard Gwen reprimanding behind me as I made my way to the loo with my suitcase. "You could go a bit easy on her."

"By her people's standards, she _is_ a child, Gwen. Her father is over 900 years old."

"From where I'm standing, Jack, she's a grown woman," Ianto interjected. "'A woman who was a prisoner of her own body for nine years and just got released' is how she described it to me. And by my understanding she's taken care of you in the past as much as you of her."

"She's going to get noticed," Jack complained.

"She only hops about jabbering like that in the Hub, Jack. Out there... Completely normal," he informed him. "Do what you like with the CCTV, but I think blanks would draw more attention to a particular time period than an exuberant young lady in pyjamas."

"All right. I'm deleting the footage of her scans, though; that's it," Jack conceded.

When I re-emerged from the bathroom, everyone was at their stations, save Jack and Ianto, the latter holding out a warm mug of industrial strength caffeine. "Sweet Goddess!" I exclaimed upon tasting it. "That's lovely. Forget patenting the coffee; we ought to patent you! Or replicate you at least, if Jack won't share." This last I said with a wink, earning a small, crooked smile from the Captain.

"Sage, I think I've got it working," Tosh called out to me. I went to her desk to see. "I've got it turning my monitor on and off, at any rate, sort of like a remote control," she told me.

"'Cause the world needs Sonic Remote Controls," Owen teased her.

"I expect different frequencies have different effects, am I right?"

"Nail on the head, Tosh," I congratulated her. "You're brilliant!"

"Thanks," she said softly, blushing.

"Let me see if I can get this thing working," I said, rolling my eyes and flipping open my wrist band. "Oh, but I don't want to put down this coffee. It's magic coffee. I'm afraid it'll sprout little legs and walk away."

"It won't," Tosh said with a small smile. "Martha's not here, so no worries. Just set it down on my desk. I'm really curious about your wristband. The one time Jack let me take a close look at his I couldn't make any sense of it."

"That's because you can only fix these with certain sonic frequencies," I told her, setting my coffee down and waving a finger at it, signalling it to stay put. That made Ianto smile. "Let's try for teleport," I said, setting my tool and giving it a go. "There, that's done it," I declared. "Teleport. Sorted."

"Prove it," Jack dared me.

"Oh, you know better than to dare _me_, Jack Harkness," I teased him. I teleported up into his office, then back down to Toshiko's station, taking a sip of coffee before continuing to set my Penlight. I suddenly realized it was very quiet in the Hub. "What?" I inquired. Everyone was staring at me looking boggled, except for Jack, who started snickering.

"Nice one. What about the Vortex Manipulator itself?" he inquired. I gave it a go and got nothing but sparks. "Worth a try," he shrugged.

"Maybe Dad—"

"He won't. He took mine back offline. And teleport. That was a bummer; turning off the teleport. Came in pretty handy on the _Valiant_."

"Bummer indeed. Anyway... Hologram?" I tweaked again, seemed not to have burnt anything, tried to record, but in playback all I got was the sound of Owen moving scalpels and such about. I replayed it twice to make sure. "Ah, well. Audio's better than nothing."

"Aren't you going to fix Jack's teleporting thing?" Gwen inquired.

"Eesh... If my dad turned it off..."

"It's all right, Sage. He must have done it for a reason," Jack conceded. "Enjoy your coffee."

"I'll be in the hothouse, then," Ianto excused himself.

"And I've got a stack of admin," Jack said before following him up the stairs.

"There's cheese Danish in the fridge, if you want it, Sage," Ianto called down to me.

"Thanks, Ianto," I replied. "Oh, and Tosh, thanks a million for your help. I'm a bit of an embarrassment when it comes to fixing Sonic, I'm afraid."

"No problem," Toshiko said, smiling. "It was my pleasure."

"Sage, after you grab that Danish, mind coming down here and taking a look at this?" Owen called out to me.

"A look at what?" I asked, hoping it wasn't something that would make my breakfast come back up the chute.

"Unidentified species. Nothing gooey; you won't lose your Danish or anything. Jack was boggled by it and it's not in the database. Have a look?"

"All right," I agreed. Ianto had shown me where the fridge was the night before, so I just grabbed breakfast and dropped down into another of Owen's little autopsy bays. "Oh, that's a Zarbi of Vortis," I told him, after one quick glance at the enormous ant-like creature. "Poor thing. They used to be dangerous, but it wasn't their fault. Mind control. After the Animus was destroyed, they were quite a peaceful race. The Rift reaches farther out each year," I told him, shaking my head. "If you're going to perform an autopsy on it, Owen, I suggest quarantine. This is a female, and its larvae are poisonous. They may have survived whatever killed her."

"So, scan and incinerate?"

"That's Jack's call." Owen handed me his comms device, which looked more or less like your average Bluetooth earpiece. I put it in my ear, pressed the activation button, and spoke to Jack, appraising him of the situation with the Zarbi. I then passed comms back to Owen.

"Scan and incinerate, Owen," he instructed him. "Oh, and get Sage her own comms device out of the locker, will you?"

"Will do," Owen assented, then switched off comms. "Miranda, why are you called a Time _Lord_? Why not a Time _Lady_?"(2) he asked, genuinely curious, as he stripped off his gloves.

"Because it sounds stupid," I said simply. "I barely qualify, though. I'd just started my training at the Academy when war broke out."

"Why did your father leave you behind?" he asked me, taking my hand and guiding me up and out of the autopsy pit.

"It was easier that way," I told him. "My mother was dead and my dad was exiled. He took my niece Susan when he left, but I was still a Time Tot when he was banished, so he left me behind. I guess he wanted to see if I passed Initiation or not."

"What's Initiation?"

"Complicated. You look into the Time Vortex itself, a swirling whirlwind of space and time, people and places, great deeds and terrible crimes. Some are inspired by it, some run away from it, and some simply run mad. My father was one of the ones who ran away. He played their game for a while, came back against his will a few times; it was messy. Miranda was my sister's name, not mine. I also had an older brother; Susan was his daughter. It's all a bit of a muddle, really. (3) I never got to know any of my relatives. My father took Susan when he ran. I never really understood why he did, but maybe it was because she was the one who knew him best."

"Maybe he was just a horny bloke like me," Owen jested.

"Eew," I said. "You just said my dad boned my niece. Eew."

Owen chuckled, opened a locker, and handed me my own comms. "Courtesy of Captain Jack," he said. "I don't think he wants you wanderin' off."

"You should see to that Zarbi. If it's incubating, it could—"

"Whoa!" Gwen cried out as the Zarbi burst open, dozens of larvae pouring out of its abdomen.

"Explode," I concluded. "Everybody off the floor! Now! They're poisonous!" I shouted. Gwen and Tosh Jumped onto the nearest chair and desk, respectively.

"Any idea how to kill them?"

"Fire," I suggested.

"Tosh, Gwen, stay where you are!" Owen called out. "Poison can't kill a dead man," he reminded me, then darted off, squashing a few larvae in the process.

"What the hell happened?" Jack yelled down to me.

"Gestation, Jack. Shit!" I found myself suddenly surrounded by them, and there was nothing for me to climb.

"Ianto, stay where you are. Sage, step on them! I'm coming after you!"

"They'll kill you!" I cried out.

"I'm used to it!" he yelled, sliding down the railing and running across to where I was cowering. He lifted me off my feet and slung me over his shoulder. Several larvae slid up his shoes and pant legs as he crossed the room the second time. "Ianto! Take her." Ianto did as told, grabbing me about the waist as Jack set me down on the third step or so, and pulling me up the stairs. Jack collapsed against the railing. "God, I hate the slow deaths," he complained before he fell still, sprawled across the stairway. The larvae slithered away from him once he was dead, and kept their distance. Meanwhile, Owen came back from the munitions locker with a flamethrower and burnt the lot of them to a cinder before they could slither up to where the ladies stood helpless.

"Being dead can come in handy," he remarked to Tosh as he tossed the flamethrower aside, helping her down carefully with his hands on her waist and hers on his shoulders.

Gwen helped herself down and ran to Jack just as I did, Ianto close behind me. I pulled his lifeless form into my lap. "Come on, Captain, you've had worse days," I murmured to him, kissing him tenderly on the forehead. Just then, he gasped his way back to life.

"What's that thing called again?" was the first thing he asked me.

"Zarbi."

"Packs a wallop," he remarked. Ianto and I helped him to stand, but he swayed a bit on his feet.

"Let's get him to the sofa," Ianto suggested. That's how on my second day with Torchwood I ended up with Jack's head in my lap, a complete role-reversal of the night before.

"Ianto, help me get rid of this thing and check for strays," Owen said. The girls went back to their posts cautiously, and I saw Gwen grab a blowtorch on her way back to her desk.

"Another lesson learned the hard way," Jack murmured.

"Sleep, sweet Captain," I told him softly. "You'll be back to yourself soon enough."

"Happy Jack," he murmured. "Remember? They were so wrong."

"I know, love," I whispered. "I know."

* * *

1) It was cabinets, actually, but I preferred shelves. Jack was the one who mentioned shelves.

2) This is actually a subject of much debate among hardcore Whovians.

3) _Really_. Look it up someday.


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm taking Sage out to dinner," Jack told Ianto. After the larval incursion, the rest of the day had been surprisingly quiet. "The last time she had a real date was 1996."

"Are you asking me if I'm jealous, Jack?" Ianto guessed, sorting through the most recent pile of faxes on his desk.

"Are you?"

"I want you to be happy," Ianto told him, finally looking up.

"I don't deserve you," Jack murmured, kissing the top of Ianto's head tenderly, then rumpling his hair.

"You deserve the world," Ianto said. "So does she. Go. Have fun. But it's my turn next time we get a quiet night."

"That's a promise," Jack told him.

Meanwhile, I'd just stepped out of the bathroom wearing a black velvet dress and heels.

"How'd you fit all those clothes in that tiny little bag?" Gwen asked with a mixture of curiosity and amazement.

"Time Lord technology," I told her enigmatically. "It's bigger on the inside," I winked.

She peeked inside my suitcase and looked up at me, wide-eyed. "You'll have to loan this to me next time I go on holiday with Rhys," she remarked.

I chuckled. "Sure. I think Jack might have to clean out an entire storage vault for my wardrobe, though."

"Are those bellbottoms?" she asked.

"You ought to see the hoop skirts," I told her.

"Well, look at you," Owen remarked. "Going all out for Jack, eh?"

"It's from the 40s," I whispered.

Owen laughed, took my hand, and twirled me. "You look gorgeous. Show the old Captain a good time, all right?"

"It's just dinner," I shrugged, blushing, a bit self-conscious.

"You love him, eh?" Owen said. It wasn't really a question. "Sorry about bringing up the… well… you know."

"I brought it up first," I reminded him.

"Yeah, well… You just go out and have fun, all right? 'Cause looking that good _someone's_ got to dance with you, and you don't want to see a dead man dance," he winked.

"Well, well!" Tosh exclaimed. "You and Jack making an evening of it? Dinner, dancing…"

"Just dinner and dancing, Tosh," I said, blushing again.

"Well, you look lovely. Have a great time, and tell me all about it in the morning," she winked. I grinned at her then. There was more to Toshiko Sato than she was letting on, I guessed. I was looking forward to us being friends. I'd never really had friends other than Jack, after all, and definitely no girl friends. Gwen and Tosh and Owen had definite potential of understanding my odd life. And Ianto… well, Ianto was Ianto. I already considered him my second best friend after Jack, an honour never before bestowed.

"Wow," Jack remarked, walking in and seeing me in my long velvet gown. "From the 40s, right?" he mused. "But I don't remember it."

"We didn't go out much in the 40s, remember? Your other you was wandering around London and you were afraid of crossing your own timeline. I kept telling you this was Cardiff and it was fine, but you kept saying 'The other Jack Harkness is out there.'"

"He was. We met him," Tosh spoke up.

"No way. Paradox," I argued.

"The _other_ Jack Harkness, Sage. The man whose name I took? He was based in Cardiff," he told me gently.

"You've got some explaining to do over dinner, I should think," I told Jack, eyebrow raised.

The others waved goodbye as we took the lift up. Even Ianto popped in from his mock office and joined them. I didn't know it then, but it was the last time all six of us would be together. If I had… But I can't change it. Things are what they are. Jack says everything changes. Ianto says things _never_ change. They're both right.

* * *

While we were at dinner, Jack sent an email to Gwen via PDA. He told her to go home; everything was quiet; she should share the evening with Rhys and a bottle of champagne. The others left soon after, save Ianto. When Jack and I returned to the Hub, he was still manning his little booth. I changed back into jeans and a soft cotton blouse, taking my little suitcase to the sofa in Ianto's back room. He was right about Myfanawy; I smelled different to her than the others and she'd swooped down at me a few times the night before. It had been worse than sleeping with mice, but I wasn't ready to admit that to anyone but Ianto. Jack was tucked up in his office, still working on admin. The Prime Minister was giving him trouble again, he said.

I put on my long grey coat, intending to step out for a walk; I'd been too hungry and excited to appreciate the bay the night before, and too enchanted with Jack at dinner; but Ianto called out to me just as I was debating whether or not to try to work the glitches out on my wrist strap first. I pocketed my Sonic Penlight and went to him. "What is it?"

"Someone's sighted that blue Police Box you mentioned," he informed me.

"Where?" I asked him.

"London. In an alley, near the Adipose building."

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Ianto," I told him, flipping open my wrist strap. "Don't tell Jack I've gone until he notices, all right?"

"Why not?"

"He'd want to come with me," I said, then teleported to London.

* * *

My search for my father was fruitless. I could sense him in the area, but somehow I kept missing him. Every time I did a scan for alien tech, I'd get a million blips. I spent that night and all of the next day searching for him, wondering what was going on that there could be so much alien tech in London, but I'd forgotten two important items in my haste: my comms, which I hadn't worn to dinner, and my mobile phone. I'd never been told the numbers for the Torchwood Emergency Line or Jack's mobile; he'd programmed them for me and simply told me they were speed dial one and two; so I couldn't call the team about the blips in London. I hadn't foreseen any of it. I'd been imprudent. I'd acted like a child.

The London Blips were finally explained when several million little creatures appeared seemingly out of nowhere... nowhere and everywhere... and made for the Adipose building, which up until then I hadn't been able to find. With that all over the news, I didn't hear about the explosions that had devastated Cardiff until very late.

In my desperation to get back, I missed the coordinates of the Hub by several blocks and decided to hoof it rather than risk another botched landing. As I ran toward the building, I saw a figure walking toward me. A man in a red Napoleonic military coat.

"You!" I screamed at him, menacing him with my completely harmless Sonic Penlight. He didn't run. He didn't laugh. Instead he sighed, opening his hands to me in a sign of surrender.

"I see you got your sight back, Time Lord," he said, his voice heavy with unshed tears.

"Who are you?" I asked him, wondering whether to believe the sorrow in his voice or the guns on his hips.

"You're going to be angry," he warned me with another sigh. "I'm John Hart." I punched him in the face. "All right, I deserved that. But I _did_ warn you."

"What have you done?"

"It wasn't me," he told me.

"Bullshit! What have you done?!" I screamed.

"It wasn't me; it was Gray," he said, taking a wrist strap from his pocket and switching on a hologram of a young man. A young man who bore a slight resemblance to Jack. "Jack's brother," he said needlessly. "The one he lost."

"Why?"

"Revenge. Insanity," he mused. "Hatred... I'm sorry, Sage."

"How do you know my name?" I asked, still suspicious.

"That's my old wrist strap you're wearing, Time Lord," he pointed out. I burst into tears.

"Johnny?" I blurted. "Why?"

"I was sixteen. A rebel. A pain in the ass. Gallifrey was ancient, beautiful... forbidden. And so were you. Did you pass the test, or did you run, Sage?"

"I passed. Did you know what was going to happen to us?" I pressed. "Is that why you gave it to me?"

He shook his head, smiling sadly. "I'd just gotten an upgrade and you weren't supposed to have one. I gave it to you on a lark, that's all."

"And why did you blind me?" I ventured.

"Because he loves you, and I'm rubbish at sharing, Time Lord. I wanted to hurt him, but I didn't get a chance. I found you first. Not that any physical damage I'd done to either of you would have lasted long; I know that now. Why didn't you regenerate?"

"I don't like cages," I told him straight. "The old Torchwood would have locked me up and lost the key." He merely nodded, understanding. "Are they okay? Did anyone get hurt?"

"Where were you when they needed you, Sage?" he asked, his tone accusing.

"As useless as you left me, so don't put this on me!" I cried. "Are they dead?"

John shocked me by pulling me against himself and kissing me firmly on the lips. "Give that to Jack," he said. "He needs you. Go."

I ran and never looked back. He's still out there, somewhere. I'm sure of it.


	7. Chapter 7

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," I heard Tosh say. "Thank you. And Owen... You never knew!... I love you. All of you. And... I hope I did good." Then she suddenly went silent. It had been a recording. I guess I'd known that all along.

I heard Gwen crying, heard her say she couldn't go on, not after what had happened. Heard Jack tell her that she could. They all could.

"The end is where you start from," he said.

I closed my eyes before stepping through the doorway. The room was a confusion of smells. Blood and burnt gunpowder, water and sweat and the salt of tears. I couldn't tell who was left, save Jack and Gwen. All I knew was that Tosh had died. "Jack?" I called out. "Ianto? Owen?"

Ianto, who had been standing stoically beside Jack and putting up a brave front, finally burst into tears when I said Owen's name. He ran across the debris-strewn room and pulled me into his arms, hard enough to hurt, crying out in rage and agony. "Jack," I said over his shoulder when he'd quieted enough for me to speak. "Toshiko and Owen... What happened?"

How do you kill a dead man? I wondered. I soon found out. Gray had forced John to blow up half the city with concentrated rift storms. He'd called the Weevils onto the streets. The power station had gone into meltdown. Owen was the only one who could get past the Weevils to stop the catastrophe. Toshiko was in the Hub, talking him through it, when Gray shot her and locked the others, including John, into the cells. Jack had been buried alive! Gray was so angry and vengeful that when John had fled with Jack to 27AD (in an attempt to get away from the trigger signal of a bomb Gray had molecularly bonded to his skin) he'd forced him to _bury Jack alive_. John had tricked Gray by tossing a ring into the grave as a token, a ring that was actually a homing beacon. Jack had finally been dug up by Alice Guppy of Torchwood in 1901 and cryogenically sealed into Bay 5 to avoid a paradox, officially making him live through 1941 four times, to say the very least.

While Tosh was talking Owen through sealing off the power plant, as it had already reached the critical point, there was a power surge and he was locked in. The chamber where he stood was flooded with irradiated coolant. He had to watch himself decompose, helpless to stop it, conscious throughout. By the time Jack's cryo chamber released him and he took down Gray, releasing the others, Toshiko was near death. She only lasted a few more moments, smiling at Jack with tears in her eyes as she died in his arms.

I only heard part of this from Jack and Ianto. Gwen was physically ill and Jack forced her to go home to Rhys. The rest I watched on CCTV while Ianto and Jack were sleeping. I had taken every cushion in the building and made them a bed on the floor of the boardroom. They'd both cried themselves to sleep; silent, stoic tears. I watched John tell Jack to remember that he loved him... and then riddle him with bullets. I heard Toshiko tell Owen she was fine as she was dying, watched her be strong for him because he needed her, saw her agony when he raged over his fate. "NO!!! NOT LIKE THIS!!!" She asked him to please stop, that he was breaking her heart. My heart broke with hers. "We missed each other," he said, blaming himself. She joked about the time she'd met my father, how she'd been standing in for Owen because he'd been too hung-over to work. "Space Pig," they both said, and laughed. My father had called it a mermaid.

And I cried. I cried and couldn't stop. It was my fault for not being where I was needed. My father's fault for angering Queen Victoria in the first place. Rose Tyler's for wishing Jack back to life so hard that she'd trapped him forever. Martha's for being in the way of a bullet that Owen caught with his heart. John's for finding Gray and falling under his control. Toshiko and Owen had paid with their lives, but Gwen and Ianto were paying, too. Ianto says nothing ever changes. Torchwood curses you to die young.

Torchwood exists because we meddle.

Jack says there's something I need to understand about my father: there's no wonder without pain, no good without the bad. He's glorious and eternal, and he's damnation. Rose knew this, and still she loved him. Jack says my father loves her, too. I wish I could find her and shake her and ask her why. Why couldn't she have left Jack alone? Why did she bring him back? Alone, I'd have faded away. Without me, Torchwood never would have seen whatever it is they fear. Wouldn't that have been better?

Toshiko! Owen! I love you so much... Come back to me, please!

You're breaking my heart.

* * *

**[April 3, 2008 - April 8, 2008]**

**Continued in "Torchwood: Devastation Day"**


End file.
